SMS Setup

Deploy Mona as an SMS bot using Twilio.

Prerequisites

• A working MonoClaw installation
• A Twilio account
• A Twilio phone number

1. Set up Twilio

1. Sign up at twilio.com
2. Buy a phone number (or use a trial number)
3. Go to Account Info and copy:
   • Account SID
   • Auth Token

2. Configure webhooks

1. In your Twilio phone number settings, set:
   • A MESSAGE COMES IN → Webhook → https://your-domain.com/webhooks/sms
   • HTTP POST
2. Ensure your MonoClaw instance is publicly accessible

For local development, use ngrok:

ngrok http 3000

Then use the ngrok URL as your webhook.

3. Configure MonoClaw

monoclaw gateway setup

Choose SMS and enter:

• Twilio Account SID
• Twilio Auth Token
• Twilio phone number

Or manually:

monoclaw config set TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID "ACxxx"
monoclaw config set TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN "your-token"
monoclaw config set TWILIO_PHONE_NUMBER "+1234567890"

4. Start the gateway

monoclaw gateway start

Interaction

Text your Twilio number:

What's the weather like today?

Mona replies via SMS.

Configuration

# ~/.monoclaw/config.yaml
gateway:
  sms:
    phone_number: "+1234567890"
    max_message_length: 1600   # Twilio max
    allowlist:
      - "+0987654321"

Costs

• Twilio charges per SMS sent/received
• Inbound SMS: ~$0.0075/message
• Outbound SMS: ~$0.0079/message (US)
• Rates vary by country

Limitations

• 160 character segments — Long messages are split into multiple SMS
• No media — SMS doesn't support images or files
• No group chats — One-to-one only

Troubleshooting